Hello, UO students and welcome to week three, where it seems all sense of regularly-scheduled programming has been lost to a time where the words “pandemic” and “Zoom” weren’t triggering. Universities across the country opted for an online 2022 — some choosing to begin the term online and others making a gradual shift to in-person learning based on changing COVID-19 concerns. Here at UO, where the university has conveniently decided to not make any decisions for the term, it is chaos.
On Jan. 6, UO students received clarity from the university in the form of an email, notifying them that instructors may “move courses that are experiencing 20 percent or more COVID-related student absences” to online learning for a limited period. This decision to return to remote learning ultimately falls on the professors, who require dean approval. 
Many are satisfied with this response. “I’m fully fine with Oregon being in-person and teachers giving options to be online,” student Chris Engel said. The ability to learn in-person amid a global pandemic is undoubtedly something to be grateful for, but not all UO students have been given this option.
“All of my classes have been moved online —  I guess I just didn’t expect this to happen so quickly,” student Gracie Nelson said. “It’s been confusing.”
It seems unfair that some students should be given the option for in-person learning while others are not, and perhaps a more unified decision from the university would have alleviated this issue. Instead, there was none. It’s difficult to complain about this (to Zoom or not to Zoom) when no option is particularly good, but surely the option that least risks student safety is the lesser of two evils.
“There has been no effort to reduce class sizes,” student Anna Anton said. “I am always shoulder-to-shoulder with other students. It risks everyone’s safety.”
Fortunately for us all, with the university seemingly unwilling to reduce class sizes, COVID-19 has jumped into action. Students attending in-person classes may notice each day that one or two more of their peers have opted to stay home, and they may start to hope their name isn’t the next to appear at the top of the growing list of the university’s positive cases. 
It is clear the university was ill prepared for winter term to elicit so many different student needs and opinions and should have planned to better assist professors in making these accommodations. “The school should have provided better resources for teachers,” student Tal Lotzof, whose math professor has struggled to show students online clear images of their in-person screen, said. Adequate cameras, instructions on how to use Zoom’s features like screen-sharing or breakout rooms, smaller class sizes and clearer COVID-19 guidelines all would have eased this transition for professors and students alike.
At the end of the school day, though, there are no real winners — except for perhaps President Michael Schill and his fellow 6-figure-making administrators. In early April 2021, Schill and other administrators did opt to take slight pay cuts, which were expected to last six months. Having cited concerns that students may not stay throughout our first spring term of remote instruction, Schill may be relieved to see the 2021-2022 school year accomplished a record enrollment despite COVID-19 concerns.
If these pay cuts, or ahem, enrollment concerns had persisted, though, the university’s hesitancy to announce this winter term to begin online makes sense. With all students now experiencing a “unique” winter term (be it online, in person or somewhere in between), the university can hide their accountability behind these shrouded layers of confusion and chaos.

But not from me, they can’t. I admit it’s unfair to assume poor intentions drove the university’s decision — or lack thereof — this term. It is understandable that any institution would struggle to decide what is the best working option amid changing CDC guidelines and a new, rapidly spreading variant. Still, I can’t help but wish university officials had been more transparent with their decision-making process and had made clearer efforts to prioritize student and faculty safety.
Ultimately, all the university has really done was choose not to make the hard decision to move winter term, at least initially, online. In perhaps saving themselves some backlash from students and parents hoping for in-person education, they have shirked responsibility onto students and professors to navigate the quick and confusing shift into hybrid learning.
It may be true there are no real winners of winter term, but there are losers. (That’s us, guys.)